This invention relates to a chemical reaction apparatus and, in particular, to a microreactor for conducting chemical reactions to test solid samples, such as thin film catalysts.
In chemical laboratories, it is often desired to employ microreactors to produce chemical reactions at predetermined temperatures and pressures of small quantities of reactants, sometimes involving catalysts. Small-sized reactions may be desirable for many reasons. For instance, if only small amounts of the reactants or catalysts are available, it may be desired to test their properties before proceeding with their further development. The behaviour of catalysts themselves under varying conditions may be the object of the investigation and microreactors are valuable because they are more easily able to produce desired pressure or temperature changes than are larger test units. The microreactors with their controlled volumes, rates of flow, temperatures, etc. are well-suited to enable scale up of production processes. One such prior microreactor is described in Bowe, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,585,622, issued Apr. 20, 1986, which is particularly concerned with regulating the temperature within a reaction tube within tightly controlled limits and being capable of effecting changes of temperature in the reactor tube at high rates of speed. This requires a quite complex temperature sensing and temperature controlling system.
Okumoto, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,087,249, issued May 7, 1978, describes a pyrolysis apparatus for analysis in which a connecting rod and sample dish are used for inserting a sample into a reaction tube.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a microreactor especially adapted for analyzing small solid samples, such as thin-film catalysts.